Abstract This article argues that the eye-catching appearances of Diodorus Siculus’ home town of Agyrium in the Bibliothêkê Historikê— a town otherwise overlooked in the historical record — are not simply acts of self-promotion or aggrandizement. Rather, they were a response to contemporary actions taken by Roman elites against their provincial subjects during Diodorus’ lifetime, which stood in opposition to those behaviours of clemency and moderation that Diodorus portrays as necessary for a just and stable empire. The article analyses the three major appearances of Agyrium in the Bibliothêkê , demonstrating how Diodorus establishes his home town as bearing prosperous agriculture critical to Roman food security, as a ‘city of great renown’ on a par with Syracuse, Carthage and Corinth, and as a pious benefactor to its worthy neighbours. The article concludes that Diodorus’ glorification of Agyrium is an implicit critique of Roman rule during a period of provincial anxiety and civil unrest, in line with his intention that the Bibliothêkê serve as a work of moral utility, within a socio-political context where explicit critique of the Roman political elite was all too dangerous.
Abstract In the third book of his Annals , Tacitus interrupts his account of Tiberius’ reign to present an extensive digression on Roman legal history, beginning with humanity’s earliest days during the proverbial ‘Golden Age’, and ending in the Early Principate. This article posits that the passage is central to our understanding of Tacitus’ legal thinking, and suggests that his handling of existing narrative traditions allows him to present a notably sceptical approach to the law. By comparing Tacitus’ account of Roman legal history to that of other authors, and placing it within the wider context of legal themes within his work, it becomes clear that he presents the law not as an inherently civilizing force but rather as a potential tool for oppression. However, this does not mean that the legal excursus amounts to little more than a straightforward narrative of legal decline: Tacitus introduces a number of strategic ‘bright spots’, suggesting that, while the law is always in danger of becoming repressive, it can in fact be used for good—although this beneficial use is aspirational rather than self-evident, and is in danger of being undermined by many different parts of Roman society.
Abstract Despite the consensus that commissiones meras in Caligula’s disparagement of Seneca (Suet. Calig. 53.2 ) means ‘mere school exercises’ or the like, there is no firm evidence that commissio does indicate a speaking competition, much less a speech delivered at such a competition. Since it is not possible to be certain which Seneca was disparaged by Caligula, appeal to the style of father or son is not helpful for interpreting the barb, but the context in which it was hurled is. Caligula scorned Seneca’s style because it was too restrained and too elegant, not the menacing weapon that Caligula wielded. He was consumed with winning, whether in speaking or chariot racing. Since commissio most frequently refers to the beginning of public games, this article argues that Caligula uses it figuratively—‘mere beginnings’. This interpretation becomes more plausible with Justus Lipsius’s suggestion that harenam sine calce means ‘a racecourse without a finish line’. The second part of Caligula’s barb explains the first, and the whole means ‘Seneca composed nothing but beginnings, that is to say, his kind of writing was a racetrack without a finish line’. It may also be possible that harenam sine calce , like sanguinis missionem (‘bloodletting’, Suet. Calig. 29.2), is a pun and activates both senses of harenam sine calce : Seneca’s kind of writing was both a racetrack without a finish line and sand without lime—it never got to the point and did not hold together.
Abstract This article analyses the philosophical discourse on illegitimate gods in Lucian’s Concilium deorum, Cicero’s De natura deorum and Plutarch’s Amatorius. Lucian describes certain gods as bastards ( νόθοι ) who have been illegally registered ( παρέγγραπτοι ) in the divine community. Similar descriptions occur in Cicero and Plutarch, although textual transmission has obscured this. The references to illegitimate gods in these three texts should be interpreted as engaging in different ways with so-called sorites paradoxes. Academic sceptics used such paradoxes to point out the vagueness of the concept ‘god’ in Stoic theology. As the example of illegitimate gods is invoked with a similar goal in a negative, sceptical context by Cicero and in a positive defence of religion by Plutarch, it shows how scepticism could be reconciled with religion. Once this intellectual background is reconstructed, unnoticed aspects of Lucian’s satirical take on it can be brought out. Based on the integrated analysis of these key passages, two emendations are proposed: at Cic. Nat. D. 3.39 read nothos [: nouos MSS] et adscripticios ; at Plut. Amat . 756C read παρεγγραφῆς [: παρεισγραφῆς MSS] … καὶ νοθείας ( παρεισγραφή should be omitted from our dictionaries).
Abstract The denigration of Cicero at Inu. Cic . 5 is not just indebted to Rutilius Lupus’ translation of a fragment of Lycurgus ( Rhet. Lat. Min . page 11 Halm); it also modifies a second model, Sall. Cat . 14.2, in a way that cleverly puns on that modification. This is an additional argument for a date of composition after Bellum Catilinae (and thus against its authenticity), while offering further evidence of its polysemous play; and the comparison with the second epistula further suggests the latter’s dependence upon the invective, while missing its subtler point.
